


All In A Day's Work

by thekeybladetomyheart (ObsessedMuch)



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - Domestic, Fluff, Light Angst, Multi, mostly just fluff though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-04
Updated: 2017-07-04
Packaged: 2018-11-23 12:37:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11402547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ObsessedMuch/pseuds/thekeybladetomyheart
Summary: Sora is much too skilled at evading his turn to wash the dishes. Can Riku and Kairi finally get him to do his share of the work?





	All In A Day's Work

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a prompt from ocprompts-andsuch on Tumblr:
> 
> Persons A, B, and C have a dishwashing list, showing whose turn it is to wash the dishes. Person C usually never does the dishes. One evening, person B comes home to whining noises. They check the kitchen and see person C washing the dishes...under the supervision of person A. They feel pity for Person C and they help them out. Person A gives their strict behavior up and joins in. All three are washing the dishes while talking about how their day was.

Kairi got out of her car slowly, the aches and pains from standing all day at work starting to make themselves known. Luckily she had the next two days off, two days that she planned on spending with her boys. How they had managed to coordinate those two days off, she wasn’t sure, but she wasn’t exactly going to complain. As she made her way carefully to the door, she thought eagerly of the dinner Riku would likely have prepared by now. Her shift at the restaurant had gone later than usual, and the other two would have been home for hours at this point.

The door was unlocked, which she wasn’t entirely surprised about. Sora and Riku were surely expecting her home soon, and she was the real stickler for locking the door, anyway. As she walked in, she heard a distressed sound coming from the kitchen, which immediately set her on edge.

She called out, “Sora? Riku? Are you guys okay?” Neither one responded to her, fueling her sense of unease. She started shuffling towards the kitchen without bothering to put her purse down or take off her shoes. As she rounded the large couch, she heard another whine from the other room. This time, however, she could hear the distinctly petulant undertone that she had missed before. She could also now hear the sound of running water, likely the reason the other two hadn’t responded to her call before.

“You brought this on yourself, you know. If we could trust you to actually take your turn on the dishes, we wouldn’t be here right now,” Riku was saying, clearly nearing the end of his patience.

“But Riku…” Sora started.

“But nothing. If you hurry, you might be able to get the dishes done before Kairi comes home,” Riku interrupted.

Kairi stopped just outside the kitchen, out of sight from the two boys, and couldn’t help smiling a little. Clearly, Riku had grown tired of Sora’s chore dodging and was now forcing him to uphold his end of the bargain.

The three of them had set up a rotating chore list when they first moved in together, in the interest of being fair. Most of the time, there were no issues. However, for some unknown reason, Sora was remarkably good at avoiding his turn to wash dishes. He was able to cajole, bargain, and plead his way out of it most nights, even managing to line up getting sick with his assigned nights on a few occasions. The other two hadn’t yet been able to find a good counter for him, and it seemed Riku had finally decided to go with the direct approach.

“I think it’s a little late for that, unfortunately,” Kairi quipped as she strode into the kitchen. Sora was at the sink, looking pitifully down at the sink that was slowly filling up with water, though his head snapped up the moment she walked into the room. Riku was leaning against the counter with his arms crossed, still staring at Sora.

“Kairi! You’re home!” Sora cried excitedly, turning to walk towards her. Riku stepped into his path.

“You’re not going anywhere until these dishes are cleaned, Sora,” Riku said sternly. “Like I said, you brought this on yourself.”

Sora looked beseechingly at Kairi, pleading with her silently to save him from his miserable fate. Kairi had never been good at saying no to Sora, especially when he had that kicked-puppy look on his face. Neither had Riku, which made his current stoic demeanor that much more impressive. In fact, out of the two of them, Riku was the one that usually gave in quicker to Sora. She imagined that the only reason he’d been able to hold off so long this time is because he was also the most determined one of the three when work needed to be done.

Faced with Sora’s doleful blue eyes, Kairi could only sigh in response. “Alright, what have you done so far?” she asked.

“Well, Riku was filling up the sink when you came in,” Sora began.

“So you haven’t really done anything, is what you’re telling me.” Kairi should have known better, as she could still hear the running water; no, wait, it had just stopped. Riku turned around from the sink, looking at both of them with a baleful eye.

“I was trying to get him to do the dishes, since it’s his turn and all,” he said petulantly.

“It won’t hurt to help him out. Besides, then it will be done faster, and we can all relax on the couch together,” she reassured him. She reached for the sponge they kept next to the sink, and dunked it in the water. Kairi knew that if she didn’t get started, there would be a whole lot of nothing getting done for a while.

As she began scrubbing the dishes in the sink, Sora came up behind her and wrapped an arm around her waist. “I’m glad you’re home, you know,” he said into her hair.

“I’m sure you are, considering you roped me into helping you with the dishes,” she retorted.

“That’s not why-“

She turned to smirk at him over her shoulder. “I know, I’m just teasing. It would help if you would rinse and dry these dishes, though.”

He turned immediately to the sink and turned on the hot water once again. Once he had rinsed the soap off a few things, he turned to grab a dishtowel, though it was clear he didn’t actually know where they were.

With a final amused huff, Riku pushed himself off the counter where he’d been perching, and opened a drawer to Sora’s right side. He grabbed a towel and reached for the dripping plate Sora still held in his hand. At Sora’s perplexed look, he gave a small smile.

“Well I can’t just leave this to the two of you, now can I? Who knows what you’ll get up to without me,” Riku said smartly. He plucked the plate from Sora’s hand and set about drying it and putting it away. And so the three of them made short work of the dishes in the sink, sharing what had happened in their respective days.

Kairi told her boys about the unbearably rude customer she’d overheard berating one of the new servers, and how she’d slipped the girl some of the tips she had gotten from her own tables (they’d been pretty generous tonight, anyway). Sora had been working all day on one cake, perfecting it for a very particular customer. Luckily, the customer had been thrilled with his work and had showered his manager with all sorts of praise for his efforts. Riku had apparently had a rather boring day, mostly doing tire rotations and oil changes at the mechanic’s shop he worked for. All in all, the three were fairly content with how the day had turned out.

It wasn’t until later, when they were lounging on the couch, that a thought occurred to Kairi. She was leaning against Riku, with Sora stretched out on their laps, facing the television. Riku was drawing idle patterns on Sora’s hip, where his shirt had ridden up, and Kairi had her hand in Sora’s hair. She tightened her grip just a little, trying to get his attention. “Hey, Sora?” she whispered. His only response was a tired grunt, a break from the quiet rumbling sound he’d been making for the past ten minutes (really, it was practically a purr, but she wasn’t going to say that out loud).

“Sora.” A little louder this time, trying to subtly shake him. The grunt came again, no more alert than the previous time. “ _Sora,_ ” she insisted, pulling her hand out of his hair to turn his head a little bit towards her.

“What?” he responded sleepily. 

“Why do you not like doing the dishes? You’re fine with just about every other chore we rotate, so what’s special about cleaning dishes?” Kairi hadn’t really thought about it before, but something about the pained way he had looked at the sink before she had announced her presence was bothering her.

She still had a hand on his head, so she felt when he stiffened at her question. “It’s nothing. You know me, I’m just the lazy one here,” he said, a little too quickly.

Thrown, Kairi looked at Riku, who until now had been doing his best to pretend he wasn’t paying attention. He was clearly confused as well, since Sora didn’t usually react like this unless something was really bothering him. Sora liked to pretend that nothing was wrong, and while that led to his bottomless supply of optimism, it was also a dead giveaway when he closed off.

“Sora, you know that doesn’t work on us,” Riku said soothingly, reaching down to run his hand over Sora’s back. “We can tell something is up. Please, just tell us what’s on your mind.”

Sora turned his head away, and mumbled something into Kairi’s leg. 

“Sora, what did you say? We didn’t hear you at all.” Kairi ran her hand back through Sora’s hair, intending it as a placating move. 

“I said I don’t like sponges, okay? They’re gross germ factories and I don’t like touching them, let alone rubbing them all over our dishes.” They might not have been able to see his face, but Kairi and Riku knew from his tone of voice that Sora’s face was probably beet red from embarrassment. They looked at each other quickly, and then burst out laughing.

“Hey, don’t laugh at me! See, this is why I didn’t want to say anything,” Sora grumbled. He started to sit up, but Riku and Kairi held him where he was, soothing him with gentle strokes on his skin when he struggled.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, we’re not laughing at you. We just thought it was something more serious than you thinking sponges are gross,” Kairi finally said, when the two of them had calmed down enough to speak.

“Yeah, silly. We can fix this easily- there are other things we can get to clean the dishes,” Riku added, trying very hard to keep a straight face. He clearly felt bad about laughing, especially knowing how much Sora hated to feel mocked.

Sora stopped struggling then, though he turned his head to look at the both of them. “Really? We don’t have to use the sponge anymore?”

Kairi looked him in the eye and said, “no, of course not. We’ll get something else to use before it’s your turn to wash the dishes again, I promise.” The way Sora’s eyes lit up at that made her stomach flutter like it had when their relationship was brand new. One look at Riku and she could see that he had melted just like she had at seeing their partner look so excited. She had so much love for these two, and she would do whatever it took to make them happy.

“In the meantime, though, I think it’s time for bed,” Riku stated, pushing Sora off of him. Sora gave an undignified squawk as he hit the floor, which induced another round of giggles from Kairi. She helped Sora stand, taking his hand, and reached over to take Riku’s as well. Side by side, the three headed towards their shared bedroom to finally bring the day to a close.

As it turned out, once Sora was no longer faced with the prospect of using a sponge, it was much easier to convince him to take his turn cleaning the dishes. Though sometimes he still tried to weasel out of it, for old times’ sake. Riku and Kairi were now wise to his tricks, though, and didn’t let him get away with it for long.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This little story ended up being way longer than I think it was intended to be, but it grew a life of its own. I admit that the disgust for sponges is entirely my own view, but I really wanted to move away from the "Sora is just lazy" explanation for why he always tries to get out of it. I see his laziness as something that marked his immaturity in the Kingdom Hearts series, and I entirely believe that he would grow out of it, eventually. Also I picked their jobs mostly based on trying to match their young adult age to something I felt fit their character.


End file.
